Method, system, and apparatus for continuously forming center-filled gum, particularly for continuously forming individual sealed pieces of liquid-filled gum from a continuous rope or strand.
Liquid or center filled gum and other confectionery products are in popular demand today. These products have a hard or solid exterior portion or shell and a soft or liquid center. The outer portion can be chewing gum or bubble gum of some type, while the liquid center portion can be a flavored material typically having a syrup-like consistency.
There are numerous mechanisms and systems known today for forming liquid-filled gum and other confectionery products. One of these systems is shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,857,963 to Graff et al. Although many of these known mechanisms and processes operate satisfactorily and produce acceptable results, there are a number of mechanical and processing concerns which need improvement. In particular, there is a need for faster, high volume systems as well as systems which are more efficient, easier to operate, and have fewer mechanical breakdowns.
One of the difficulties in the art of gum manufacturing is the fact that the gum products are tacky and have a tendency to stick or adhere to molds and operating machinery. Thus, it is recognized that gum producing mechanisms need to be operated at low temperatures, such as minus one hundred degrees Fahrenheit (xe2x88x92100xc2x0 F.). At these low temperatures, however, the costs of operation increase and the operation of machinery become more difficult. For example, oils and greases can congeal into non-fluid masses, thereby reducing the lubricating ability of the materials and causing increased friction of moving parts. This also causes additional heat load on the moving parts resulting in less efficient high-speed operation.
It is also necessary with some known low-temperature gum forming operations to cool virtually the entire machinery, including all of the rotating parts. This is particularly true with systems which utilize rotating piece-producing drum members wherein the products are in contact with the drum members virtually the entire circumference of the drum. Cooling in these systems is typically done with super cooled air or gas to provide the necessary low temperatures. Cooling all parts of the apparatus, however, creates significant additional expense, as well as further mechanical and friction difficulties in the operation of the machinery.
It has also been known to be problems with rotating gum forming equipment to effectively feed a rope or strand of gum material into the rotating machinery and to insure that all of the formed pieces of gum material are removed or stripped from the rotating machinery. It is also known that rotating gum forming machinery often xe2x80x9cchipsxe2x80x9d or clips off pieces of the individual gum pieces as they are formed. This creates unnecessary waste of material and, if the material has a liquid portion, can result in xe2x80x9cleakersxe2x80x9d which can cause stoppage and/or breakdowns of the machinery, as well as undesirable final products.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved mechanism and system for producing center-filled gum products. It is also an object of the present invention to provide an improved system for continuously producing pieces of center-filled gum from a continuous rope or strand of gum material.
It is a further object of the present invention to produce a rotating gum forming mechanism and system which prevents the undesirable removal of small portions of the gum products as they are formed.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a continuous gum manufacturing mechanism and system in which it is unnecessary to cool all of the various components of the machinery, and in fact where portions of the machinery can be heated to improve performance. It is another object of the present invention to provide an improved gum manufacturing mechanism and system which produces center-filled gum products on a faster and more efficient basis.
It is still another objection of the present invention to provide a continuous gum forming mechanism and system in which a rope or strand of gum material is fed into the system in a faster and more efficient manner. It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a mechanism to insure removal and/or stripping of formed gum material from a continuous gum forming mechanism and system.
These and other objects are met by the unique and inventive gum forming mechanism and system in accordance with the present invention. The system includes an extrusion and gum forming mechanism with a rotating drum member which produces center-filled gum pieces on a faster, more efficient and less costly basis.
The gum forming mechanism includes a sizing and transport table which conveys a sized rope of gum material to the rotating drum mechanism. The rotating drum mechanism has a rotating die ring and a rotating cutter ring, both with mating die halves which together form a complete mold or die which separates, shapes, and forms the gum pieces. A series of cam-operated plunger members are positioned in the drum mechanism on opposite sides of the die members in order to help shape and form the individual pieces of gum.
The die halve members in the rotating cutter ring have slanted or angled surfaces in order to prevent slicing or chipping of small portions of the gum products as the plunger members form the gum products in the mating dies and transfer them to a matrix ring. Also, an air-assist feed chute is provided which utilizes streams of pressurized air to transfer the gum rope from the sizing table to the rotating drum member. A stripper mechanism is positioned to insure removal of the formed gum products as they are ejected from the dies and matrix ring.
Portions of the gum forming mechanism and system are selectively heated or cooled to improve the efficiency and performance of the machinery and system. The sizing rollers and gum forming dies are cooled by use of a cooled gas. The mechanism which rotates the drum members and operates the cams and plungers members can be heated (or at least not cooled) in order to improve efficiency and performance.
With the present invention, liquid-filled pieces of gum are formed in a faster and more efficient manner than with known processes and systems.